The present invention relates to an exercising and stretching apparatus. Specifically, it relates to an apparatus for exercising and stretching one of a person's appendages, such as a leg, using a force exerted by another appendage or appendages, such as arms.
Exercising and stretching are important for increasing a person's flexibility and preventing injury during sporting activities. Moreover, stretching is important for physical therapy such as when a person is recovering from an accident.
Most current stretching equipment is complex. This complexity even extends to relatively simple devices designed to stretch the muscles of an appendage, such as a leg. Such complexity is a result of many factors, one of which is the desire to provide a mechanical advantage, e.g., to the arms in order to stretch the legs. Another is a desire to maintain the person's torso at a fixed position while the appendage such as a leg is leveraged into a stretched position.
Some of such devices include a rope that is securable to a person's foot in order to stretch the leg. The rope is passed through a pulley designed to change the direction of the rope and provide a convenient angle for grasping of the free end by the person's hands in order to pull on the rope and stretch the leg.
A known apparatus employs a plurality of pulleys to gain mechanical advantage and a clutched pulley to permit some relaxation of the exertion force required to leverage the leg into the stretched position. This apparatus also employs a belt to restrain the user's torso during the stretch. An example of a device embodying these features is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,709.
What is needed is an exercising and stretching device that is easy to configure and simple to use.